Monday 11 April 2011

The turnaround

So. Re-reading my last post, it seems I have kept you all on a knife edge, on the tip of a triathlon- shaped crevice if you will, as I have not so far bothered to let you know that the world has righted itself and OH is back to exercising. Whilst in my heart I knew that our life was the triathlon Gomboc – I have to admit at being relieved when we finally left that strange Weeble Land for our old life. I was beginning to panic that it was going to go on indefinitely – that I would have a boyfriend constantly under my feet (“that’s not how you operate the various hoover attachments, let me show you”) and that never again would I be able to watch a full episode of SATC/Supernanny/BFGW without a running commentary which mainly involved tutting and “I can’t believe what a waste your University education has been”. Wiggle was back in business. It may have meant that we were back to 9 o’clock dinners and weekends filled with housework interspersed with desperate requests for more calories (“more fuel, I need more fuel”) – but I was, and still am, very happy to be back to it. Can’t really offer much of an explanation as to the reasons. I suppose during our annual ski trip he got out of the habit (in exchange he did seem to develop a very expensive red wine habit, mind you); and then maybe a little bit of pressure at work including interviewing underlings (the basis of which was a little mathsy-actuarial test he made them do whilst he sat and watched them. A bit sadistic I thought but turned out was actually quite effective for wheedling out the right candidate. Anyway). Oh hang on, I remember now the reason he didn’t have time to do any actual training: DIY. Urgh. (I appreciate this doesn’t offer reasons for his mental unwillingness – I will never be able to delve into the recesses of his mind to fully find that out), but it does give credence to his protestations that he simply didn’t have the time. Excuse or not? I’ll leave that up to you to decide. But DIY. I have alluded previously to OH’s slight OCD nature when it comes to Doing It Ourselves. And I must say at the outset that we now have a fabulous new landing and stairway and so I am very thankful for his obsessive-attention-to-detail nature. He tore down the existing banister (the reason being that he didn’t like a teeny tiny gap between 2 of the newel posts – he could see the dust but couldn’t remove it) and replaced it with a lovely new oak set up; he replaced the handrail and did all of the usual painting/sanding/filling/edging etc. I flounced around a bit and tried to convince him that it was a good style choice to have cushions stacked on the floor as a seating alternative. Needless to say I didn’t win that one. But with the DIY complete for the near future at least, and the training in full swing, we're back on track for Spain. I have booked the flights, car hire and the hotel - co-incidentally I ended up booking into the Sister hotel for the GB team. Not sure if this is a good outcome or not (it just had the best sea views and spa facilities in the area) but seeing as OH and I are both pretty shy and tend to avoid all non-essential conversations with strangers, it might be a bit awkward. Mind you, people might not even realise we're with the team; OH refuses to wear the GB kit when we're actually on these trips, it's only when we get home that he wears them all the time. Months later when the group photo gets published only then will the others realise he was one of them after all. So that's it for now - this post was mainly to stop you holding your breaths (although it's taken me so long I do apologise if you've gone a funny blue colour) and to generally update you with the news. I promise faithfully to post again soon with more hilarious triathlon anecdotes (or not, depends what he gets up to I suppose).